Cape Town – Load shedding could be expected to continue through the period of high electricity demand in winter as necessary maintenance on Eskom’s plants needs to be carried out, Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown told a media briefing on Wednesday afternoon.
Maintenance in winter is a deviation from the normal practice at Eskom.
She also said there would be clarity on the so-called Deep Dive inquiry into Eskom’s financial troubles. A company skilled in accounting and forensic inquiry should be announced shortly to conduct the inquiry, said Brown.
Brown, who acknowledged that Eskom is spending R1bn a month on emergency diesel supplies and that this has already gobbled up the R8bn profit it announced in its interim financials at the end of last year, is expecting the Deep Dive report within three months.
The high cost of coal and diesel supplies to Eskom’s power plants is expected to be among the issues investigated. Brown said she has no idea why Eskom is appointing middlemen suppliers and is being charged more than the going rate for diesel, in particular.
The minister also promised that troubles on the Eskom board would be sorted out shortly, following the resignation of its chairperson Zola Tsotsi. She intends to appoint a chartered accountant and also expand the size of the board with people who have “fiduciary” skills.
In the meantime, former SABC chairperson Ben Ngubane remains acting chair of the entity. Brown said: “The board stabilisation does sit with me. What I want to do in the next couple of weeks is strengthen the board…Â (and) bring more people on to the (10-member) board.”
Brown joked that she was keen to appoint financially literate people such as “an auntie from the Cape Flats” who have money sense and could make “R30 last for the whole week”.
Addressing a briefing at Parliament, Brown took care to apologise to the nation for load shedding. “I wish to, on behalf of government, apologise for the inconvenience anyone has suffered due to load shedding and would also like to thank all citizens and consumers for their patience and understanding, but also for assisting us in the many creative ways to lift pressure off the grid.”
BEE ‘not the root cause’ of pressure
Brown said there was a suggestion from at least one pundit that costly black economic empowerment private sector contracts are the root cause of cost pressures – and supply problems – at Eskom, but she argued that this is an unlikely reason for the power utility’s woes.
“We are having load shedding because our plants are ageing,” she said, noting that coal-fired Medupi and Kusile are running late. “Medupi is taking longer than (it was) supposed to … Kusile is taking long (to come online).”
Referring to the cost of diesel in particular – which is only supposed to be used in high peak demand times at the beginning and end of the day – she said she too wondered why the costs are so high.
While diesel payment is “an operational matter”, falling outside of her responsibility as minister, it is indeed one of the key issues she wants investigated by the Deep Dive inquiry.
Pressed on why diesel is not bought directly from the normal suppliers, she said this is “a problem for me (too)… I also wonder why you (Eskom) can’t buy it (the diesel directly) yourself”.
Regarding the War Room led by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, she said that it has done work on stabilising Eskom’s finances, including the pledged R23bn injection pledged by the Treasury to Eskom. The War Room is also looking at the matter of converting from diesel- to gas-driven power stations, and is getting a handle “on the maintenance issues” at Eskom.
Of importance is to avoid a total blackout. Load shedding stage three is an indication that Eskom acknowledges the seriousness “that we face…. but it is no way an indication that we are near a total blackout”.
South Africa was hit by unplanned outages after 9 500 MW was cut from the grid on Tuesday. This was in addition to planned outages making up 5 000 MW.
